 'CCB Update' newsletter article from Parramatta City Council
August 2012
On Sunday 20 May 2012, a special art activity was held at George Kendall Riverside
Park in Ermington. The activity was a partnership between the Community Capacity
Building Team at Parramatta City Council, SHINE for Kids and was facilitated by local children’s book illustrator
and Parramatta City Library National Year of Reading Ambassador, Sarah Davies
(Illustrator of Fearless by Colin Thompson).
SHINE for Kids provides support services and mentoring to children who have a
parent in the criminal justice system. Sixteen of their young clients of SHINE for Kids
(aged from 8 to 15 years old) participated in the activity, accompanied by their adult
mentors. The art activity that Sarah Davies devised saw participants creating
individual mixed media collages based on the sites, objects and words found around
the park. The works will be hung for exhibition at Ermington Branch Library and
compiled into a special art catalogue book.
The works created in such a short space of time were beautiful. In addition to the
artistic outputs, the benefit of spending a day in the park with their mentors was a
valuable opportunity for the young people.
A staff member from SHINE for Kids provided the following feedback:
The day was a great success and one that connected the children back with nature
and the community park… The ideas and creativity that arose from the whole
exercise will remain with this group of children for some time. Sarah was inspiring for
the group and conducted the activities in such an engaging way. We are all very
excited about the book and thankful for the opportunity we had in working with
Parramatta City Council.
This was a place-based activity that aimed to build community pride among young
people and build positive relationships between Council and our local community
services.
Read more in the newsletter.
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